The day before yesterday we saw this awesome lion dance for Chinese New Year. I learned some cool stuff about lion dances that made them notably more magical than before I had known them. Anyway I still had China on the mind.
So, last night, in my dream, I find myself in the middle of this all-night celebration at the world’s loveliest spa-retreat that was actually this gorgeous Chinese monastery. It was full of our tribe, healers and artists from all around the world, and there were people dressed up dancing as amoral animistic spirits (which I preferred to the Chinese adherence to Good and Evil). And there were all kinds of nice things to eat and and endless kitchen producing different treats and everyone could eat whatever they liked. The party was staffed by priestesses who went around doing bits of magic and casting healing spells for people and offering them snacks.
Then I heard someone say it cost 10 to 15. And at first I was like, “oh no, I didn’t pay to get in, I just showed up here, am I crashing the party,” and then one of the priestesses was like, “no no you’re different, you’re an Honoured Guest, professional courtesy, you’re special. You belong here.” And I was like, “oh.”
The name of the retreat-monastery was Stillpoint, or Viewpoint. It may have literally been Stonypoint but the words felt like Stillpoint. I wandered around the beautiful nighttime garden, admiring the green grass and the rocks and the comfy couches, and wandered back into the building, full of revellers.
I had a snack in the kitchen…and this is amusing because back in the prior milonga-nightmare I had taken a sconelike thing and it didn’t look good and it tasted worse; white and empty and tasteless. But this sconelike thing over here in tonight’s dream looked good, full of grains and nuts and fruits and golden brown and packed with promise (and nutrition), and it tasted good too.
I thought, “well I could sleep here tonight if I wanted to,” except then I blinked my eyes and it was morning in the dream. In the kitchen I saw this thing I had sort of noticed and sort of not noticed before, an exquisitely hand-crafted little golden vessel. I picked it up and looked inside and inside was a sweet ripe golden fig. Except I looked closer and it wasn’t a fig after all, it was a priceless tortoiseshell fountain pen and a matching container of ink, that was blood, but blood in a good way.
“These are for you,” the young priestess in saffron gauze flowered robes said to me. And just as I was about to take the pen out of the golden vessel…I WOKE UP!